The painter Lundwig Richter, tells in his memoirs of how he and three friends set out to paint the same landscape. They each were committed to produce as accurately as possible what they saw. Nevertheless, the result was four different pictures, as different as the four personalities of the artists.

The same thing happened when four well-known artists painted the portrait of the United Nations hostess, Maria Lani. Each of them knew her personally and saw her from a different perspective, and the result was four remarkably different pictures.

This helps us understand why there are four Gospels in the New Testament. One Gospel would give us the life of Jesus as seen from only one perspective, and that would mean a very inadequate portrait. Jesus is too complex to be seen from only one perspective. God inspired four men to write the life of Jesus, for each of them gives us unique insight into Jesus that you do not get in the others.

Mark gives us the perspective that is most popular in our modern world. Wycliff Bible Translators have made Mark the most translated book in the world. There is no other book in the world in so many different languages. It is the shortest of the Gospels, and, therefore, the fastest to translate and to read.